


What The Heart Wants

by Elfbert



Category: Rawhide (TV)
Genre: Cowboys, Fluff, Idiots, M/M, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 13:45:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13682904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elfbert/pseuds/Elfbert
Summary: What's the one thing Gil can give to Rowdy to make up for upsetting him?





	What The Heart Wants

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Stephantom for the beta reading! And to the WestFic crew for encouragement :)

“And then, and then…he says…” Rowdy was giggling, trying to string the sentence together.

Gil saw the movement of an approaching drover in the gloom. He withdrew the arm that was loosely around Rowdy’s shoulders, sat up a little straighter, inching his leg away from Rowdy’s thigh.

“What’s up, Mushy?” Gil asked.

“Oh, Mister Favor, Mister Wishbone says he’s needin’ some more sugar, an’ maybe tomorrow we could go into Davis Falls tomorrow, as we’re passin’.”

Gil rubbed his eyes. “Sure, yeah, tell him to get goin’ straight after breakfast. I’ll give him the money for whatever he needs.”

Mushy nodded. “Thank you, Mister Favor. Sorry, Mister Rowdy,” he backed away before almost falling over his feet and turning to head back to the chuck wagon.

Gil relaxed back against the side of the supply wagon, hitching his foot up onto the edge of the crate he sat on.

His hand automatically moving to stroke over Rowdy’s thigh.

Rowdy shifted away.

“Why’d you do that?”

Gil turned and looked at him. “What?”

“When Mushy come over, why’d you move away?”

Gil shrugged, letting his hand land on his own thigh, smoothing over the soft leather of his chaps.

“It’s Mushy. He don’t need to see…”

Rowdy stood, one hand pushing through his hair, the other on his stomach.

Gil knew the pose. Knew it meant Rowdy was uncomfortable. Self conscious.

“You mean you don’t want him to see. You don’t want to be seen with me.”

“Rowdy,” he stood too, reaching out.

Rowdy flinched away.

“No. You always do it. You think they don’t know? They all know. So what? Embarrassed? What?”

“Rowdy, it ain’t like that,” he protested, stepping forward and reaching for him again.

Rowdy dodged his hand. “It is though. You’re makin’ it like that. You always do it. Well you know, if…if I ain’t good enough to be seen with you, then that’s fine. Just fine.”

Gil watched him march off into the darkness, kicking at a rock as he went, boot scuffing in the dirt.

He shook his head. Rowdy was always prone to little outbursts. Flying off the handle. Over-reacting. But the same passion that got him angry also came out in…other ways. Ways that Gil very much appreciated.

 

Later that evening he kicked his bedroll out next to Rowdy’s, and settled.

“Night,” he said, to Rowdy’s back.

There was no reply.

 

The next day he was completely ignored. Rowdy sat on the other side of camp as he ate, then headed out for his horse before Gil could give the day’s orders. It wasn’t as if Rowdy needed orders.

He walked over to Wishbone, gave him some money for town.

“What’s troublin’ him?” Wishbone asked. No need to say who ‘him’ was.

“Oh, I dunno,” Gil sighed, looking down. Handing his half-empty plate over.

“No?” Wishbone obviously didn’t believe him. 

“You know how he is.” Gil glanced at the retreating man.

“Yeah,” Wishbone nodded. “I know he’s got feelings.”

Gil fixed him with a look.

“Now you might pretend you don’t,” Wishbone continued, seriously, finger jabbing. “But don’t pretend he don’t.”

 

Gil swung himself into his own saddle, and watched as his drovers did the same, before riding out, checking the herd over as he did so. Habit. Looking for illness. Signs of disease. Any trouble.

His gaze fell on Rowdy, a short distance away. Head down. Shoulders rounded.

Troubled.

 

The herd moved off, dust clouds lifting into the air. Wishbone headed for the town, the wagon peeling away from the herd.

Gil rode on point, deep in thought, horse gently winding in the miles.

During the afternoon Wishbone rejoined the trail, but instead of taking his customary position off to one side, out of the dust, he rode in close and waved to Gil to join him.

“What’s up?” he asked as he reined in near the wagon.

“There’s talk in town, Boss. Raids been happenin’ around these parts. Sheriff said he’d be happy to talk to you, if’n you rode in. ’T ain’t far.”

As usual, as soon as anything seemed to be happening, drovers had moved in closer to the wagon.

Gil glanced around.

Pete was loitering nearby, whereas Rowdy was riding straight for them.

“Going to town, Boss?” Rowdy asked. The first thing he’d said all day.

Gil looked at him, then over to Pete.

“Yeah. Rowdy, you got the herd, Pete, with me.”

He ignored the look on Rowdy’s face. Or tried to. Because the expression he wore was enough to break your heart.

 

His horse settled into a gentle canter, Pete by his side.

A few miles away from the herd, he slowed his mount.

“Pete. Need to talk to you.”

“Boss?”

Gil picked a piece of hay from his horse’s mane.

“You know…me an’ Rowdy?”

Pete grinned, and Gil couldn’t help but smile a little too.

“Sure I do. You’re the boss. He’s your ramrod. Tall fellow. Usually findin’ some sorta trouble.”

“Pete…” he shook his head. He and Pete had been friends for years. Through good times and bad.

“Go on. I noticed the two of you both been down in the mouth.”

“Yeah,” Gil sighed. And then he didn’t know what else to say.

“So?” Pete pushed.

“It ain’t a secret, is it, that him an’ me are…”

“No,” Pete agreed. Quickly. “It ain’t.”

He moved easily as his horse kept walking, then reached in his pocket for a cheroot. Belatedly offering Pete one, too.

Once they’d both lit up he blew out a stream of smoke.

“You ain’t ever heard any of the crew say nothin’ about Jim an’ Joe, have you?” he asked, changing tack.

Pete shook his head. “Well, ‘sides a few of ‘em wishing they had something like it.”

Gil gave a smile at that. Jim and Joe. You couldn’t think of one without the other. Been that way as long as he’d known them.

“And I’ve never heard them say nothin’ about you and Rowdy, neither,” Pete added, obviously guessing the real question. “So don’t go thinkin’ it.”

He sighed.

“Yeah. I need to…I don’t know,” he shook his head. “When I was married…And I done something wrong, I used to take her flowers. Take the girls out, so’s she could do something with her friends. I…just don’t know…”

“You need to make it up to Rowdy?” Pete asked.

Gil nodded. “Somethin’ like that.”

“Right.”

They talked all the way into town, and once they’d met the sheriff they grabbed a beer to wash down some of the trail dust. Then headed back to the herd.

 

A week later Gil knew he’d been somewhat forgiven. Rowdy was talking to him again, although he was a little more distant, at times. There was a definite thawing, though, and Gil was pleased.

But he was a little hesitant himself, as thoughts nagged at him. And a few times excused himself to ride around the herd on his own after night had fallen, or sit away from the camp, watching over both men and beasts from somewhere nearby.

Rowdy offered to join him a few times, but he declined. He needed the time to think. And plan.

 

Finally, he was ready. He had to be.

He sat in camp in the evening and with the small stub of a pencil he kept in his pocket he filled out his trail log for the day. It had been cold, but the weather was set fair, with a blue sky being replaced by sparkling stars in the heavens.

In his trail log he made a note of the day’s progress. Then paused. And underlined the date.

He glanced around. Most people had finished eating. Rowdy was sitting by one of central fires, chatting to Pete, a mug of coffee in his hands.

Picking up his own mug he swallowed down the last of the contents, feeling like it needed to be something a lot stronger. Then he stood.

“Right,” he called out. Most people turned to look at him. “First off, we’re goin’ to lay over tomorrow. There’s a town ‘bout ten miles north east, anyone wants to go in, they can.” He held his hand up to silence the inevitable chatter. “But you’re back here and ready to work come dawn the next day, right?” He glared around.

There were various nods and sighs, but he knew the crew, knew he didn’t have anything to worry about. Not on that front, anyway.

“Secondly,” he said, lowering his hand once a near-silence had fallen again. “Some of you maybe ain’t realised, but today’s February fourteenth. Saint Valentine’s Day.”

He walked forward, heart pounding like the hooves of a racing stallion.

“Rowdy.” He held his hand out to his ramrod, whose face was showing growing uncertainty. “Thought…it’d be a good time, to tell you, in front of all this lot…” His cheeks were burning, and he almost couldn’t look Rowdy in the eyes. The wide-open eyes which were filled with surprise.

“That I love you, an’ I been an idiot. And I don’t care who here knows either of them things.”

Rowdy staggered to his feet.

As various drovers yelled and whooped and whistled and stamped, Gil reached out, slid his hand over Rowdy’s cheek, and leant in for a kiss.

He felt Rowdy’s mouth move into a wide smile under his own lips, and felt the laughter within him.

He laughed too, noses pressed together, breath mingling, lips gently touching, as the noise around them showed no signs of stopping.

Rowdy’s hands landed on his waist, pulling them a little tighter together, and he could see the pink blush on Rowdy’s cheeks too.

“Love you too, Bo…Gil,” Rowdy replied.

There was the loud pop of a cork being pulled from a bottle somewhere behind him, and a jaunty tune was struck up on a harmonica. Men all around them got up, clapping in time.

Off to one side Joe had grabbed Jim and begun to dance to the music.

But all he could do was smile, and look into Rowdy’s eyes, now filled with happiness.


End file.
